"What does all this mean?" demanded Martin angrily. "Who struck me
through the door? How dare you lock me in? Who----"

"He Captain speak you come," said the other, smiling blandly. He shed
Martin's rain of words as if he were some yellow oilskin. "I make him
way--hon'ble fellow my show."

"What is going on in this house?" demanded Martin. "Who was that white
woman? What was that gang doing with her?"

The other backed away before Martin's excited questioning. "No
understand," he said. "No woman--no gang. No savvy."

"No savvy--big lie!" cried Martin, and he pounced down upon the gray
cap which was lying on the hallway floor. He held it up for the
other's inspection. "You savvy this?" he demanded.

The Jap shook his head. His smile was gone, and there was a hostile
gleam in his eyes.

"That--no understand," he said crisply. "You come for he Captain--you
catch business he Captain!"

Martin saw he could get nothing from this fellow. He was being told
very plainly to mind his own business. Very well, this Captain Carew
was perhaps a white man.

Without further words, Martin followed the Japanese. They went the
length of the hall and paused before the last door, the one before
which the light burned. The guide rapped. A deep voice rumbled orders
within, chairs scraped, a door slammed, and the door before which they
stood was opened.

CHAPTER V

WILD BOB CAREW

Martin lurched forward past the man who opened the door into a room
that was brightly lighted by gas and kerosene lamps. It was a room
bare of furniture save for a common kitchen table, littered with charts
and papers, and several kitchen chairs.

It was a large room, much larger than the one he had just quitted, the
full width of the house, and, it seemed, part of a suite, for two
doors, besides the one he entered through, let upon it, from the rear
wall. But these details only impressed themselves upon Martin's mind
later, and gradually. At the instant of his tempestuous entrance, he
was entirely engrossed with his obsession, and he had eyes only for the
dominant figure that stood behind the paper-littered table in the
center of the room. To this man Martin addressed himself without
preliminary.

"That woman--didn't you hear?" he cried. "These Japs have a woman
prisoner in this house--a white woman! See! This is her cap. I
saw----"

"Are you the messenger who was to come to me tonight?" interrupted the
man addres